


Heart Eyes

by Harrukawa



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Au in which your eyes change color based on your feelings, First Kiss, I’m just about to go to sleep I’ll edit this later, M/M, Reddie, Richie wears sunglasses to hide from his emotions you know, They’re chaotic I love them, an actually completed fic?? Unheard of for me I know, and one day they break, some cussing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-11-02 10:37:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20717306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harrukawa/pseuds/Harrukawa
Summary: Yellow is when you're laughing so hard with your friends you can't even say your next words without it coming out as a wheezing breath. Yellow is nights down in the clubhouse in the hammock playing board games. Yellow is a cannonball off the cliff, it’s playing in the water with your friends all day.Yellow was the color Bill, Stan, Beverly, Mike, and Ben looked at him with.Eddie liked yellow.But he wanted pink.





	Heart Eyes

Pink.

Ben looked at Beverly like she was the world. 

Ben looked at Beverly with pink in his eyes. 

It didn't take long for Beverly's eyes to flicker with the same intensity, flicker a beautiful baby pink every time she looked at him. 

Oh, how Eddie longed for someone to look at him with pink in their eyes. 

Pink was innocent, tender, and so undisputedly real that Eddie found himself just staring at the two of them on occasion. Ben's face would turn the same color as his eyes when Beverly would hold his hand, no matter how many times she had done it. Beverly would catch Ben staring at her and her eyes would melt into pink no matter their previous color. 

Pink was love. 

Eddie's mother had told him that. 

Eddie's mother looked at Eddie with pink eyes. 

It wasn't the soft, baby pink Ben and Beverly had, but an intense opera pink that Eddie had never cared for. It just wasn't the same. 

Sometimes, Eddie's mother's eyes would turn black. Like the time he broke his arm on Neibolt, or whenever he lied to her, or when Richie would make a stupid joke. Eddie didn't like that color on her either. 

Eddie's eyes mostly stayed green, white, and yellow. 

Green, when the losers would make him trench through the fucking rancid sewer water, or when Richie would make jokes about his mom. Green is that feeling in your gut that warns you that _this is horribly wrong,_ and _we should not be here right now_. Green is the utter repulsion we get when we're faced with the things we can't bear to look at. 

White, when he saw the leper on Neibolt, or when facing Pennywise. White is the alarm bells that sound in your head when entering an unknown place. White is what makes your hair stand up and what makes your heart skip a beat. Eddie's eyes stayed white almost the whole summer, in constant fear of It lurking around. 

And yellow. Yellow is when you're laughing so hard with your friends you can't even say your next words without it coming out as a wheezing breath. Yellow is nights down in the clubhouse on the hammock playing board games. Yellow is a cannonball off the cliff, playing in the water with your friends all day. 

Yellow was the color Bill, Stan, Beverly, Mike, and Ben looked at him with. 

Eddie liked yellow. 

But he wanted pink. 

Not that he would tell anyone that, of course. Pink was a rare color, attraction or lust could be seen as orange or a dark red. 

Pink seemed unobtainable. 

He saw couples in the street with black eyes, couples with blue in their eyes, some with only red walking side by side. He saw couples where one person's eyes were pink and the other's were yellow. 

Eddie didn't understand how they were so unaffected by having their emotions on display. 

Some days, Eddie wished he could be like Bill. Bill never once tried to hide his feelings, putting them out for the world to see even when they were embarrassing. 

Some days, Eddie felt like doing what Richie did, just covering his eyes up from the world. It wasn't new or uncommon, people had been wearing sunglasses to cover their eyes for forever, but Eddie didn't like how guarded he felt with them on. Besides, he sometimes didn't mind. When his eyes were blue, the losers knew to stay away without even saying a word. 

Well, except him.

"Somethin' got ya down, chap?" Richie asked one day, sitting down next to Eddie while doing his horrible British voice.

Eddie ripped his eyes away from the couple sharing a kiss on the park bench a distance away— even from here he could see the pink in their eyes. 

Eddie hadn't heard Richie come up behind him— he'd been sitting in the park trying to concentrate on his schoolwork when he had gotten distracted.

"No." He blinked, turning his head away from Richie. His eyes were telling, he knew it, but he was so tired, he didn't feel like trying to cover it up. 

The couple started leaving, and Eddie looked for something else to focus on. Richie would never let him concentrate on his schoolwork, so that was out of the picture. Eddie's eyes drifted to Richie's sunglasses. 

Richie adjusted them nervously without saying anything. Eddie wasn't stupid, he picked up on a few of Richie's mannerisms and what they meant, but without being able to see his eyes, Richie was incredibly hard to read. 

Some days Eddie wished he could see what was going on in Richie Tozier's head. Maybe he felt the same about love. 

"What's wrong, Eds? Did your mom finally tell you about our relationship?" 

Or not. 

"Fuck off." Eddie rolled his eyes. Richie seemed to relax a bit, so he assumed his eyes weren't blue anymore. "Maybe I need to get sunglasses like you so you won't bother me so much." 

"Yowza! That cuts deep, my love." Richie clutched a hand to his heart, then paused, turning to look at Eddie. His tone was suddenly soft. "You shouldn't, though." 

“Why? My mom won't allow them anyway."

Richie laughs, most likely recalling the one time Eddie tried lying with sunglasses on, in which his mother had snatched them off, and was met with guilty blue-grey eyes. Not everyone's eyes changed color when they lied— Eddie was just an exceptionally bad liar. He wondered if Richie was bad at it too, or if he could look someone in the eye and keep the same color. 

Richie doesn't respond to the previous question. Instead, Eddie asks, "Why do you wear those, anyway?" for no reason in particular. He knew why, and he was sure Richie knew he knew why. 

After a beat too long, he replied, "I don't know. They make me look cool." 

Eddie wondered if Richie's eyes were blue-grey at that moment. 

There was silence, and after a second, Richie asked, "Wanna bike home with me?"

Eddie nodded, then carefully put his schoolwork into backpack, and slung it over his shoulder with a huff. Richie was surprisingly quiet as they biked home, riding circles around Eddie to piss him off. 

They were nearing Eddie's house when he said, "One of these days, you're going to fall." He was aware his eyes most likely didn't match his tone, but he was sure Richie appreciated the jab nonetheless. 

"Oh don't say that, Eddie-bear." Richie laughed, "you know you love it."

"_Don't_ call me that." He giggled, smiling at Richie as he passed him again. 

The next thing he knew, Richie was falling.

Eddie slammed on his breaks, fear stilling him as he watched Richie tumble a few feet away from his bike. 

"What the fuck happened?" He called, ignoring the whistle in his throat as he ran towards Richie, who was shaking his head and blinking profusely. "Are you okay?" 

"Fuck!" Richie cried, glancing around frantically, scrambling to his feet. 

"What's wrong?" Eddie asked, but his question was answered when Richie held up the broken remnants of his beloved sunglasses. The lenses were shattered, and the plastic had been crushed under Richie's weight. Richie's knees and hands were bleeding, but he didn't seem to care. His blue eyes were focused on his poor glasses. 

His _eyes_. 

Eddie realized he hardly recognized Richie without the glasses. He immediately decided he liked him more without them, he could tell he wasn't fucking lying about being upset or fine when he wasn't. 

"Come to my house, I'll patch you up." 

Richie didn't look at Eddie, but his eyes flashed white. 

Before Eddie could respond, Richie clapped a hand over his eyes with a nervous laugh. "I'm good. Chicks dig scars."

Eddie paused, choosing not to bring up how weird he was acting. "What if it gets infected? We'd have to, like, amputate your le—"

"I'mheadinghomesorrybye!" Richie quickly interrupted, still covering his eyes. He fumbled around for his bike, and once he was turned away from Eddie, he hopped on and took his hand away from his eyes. He drove away in a straight line for once in his life. 

Eddie was left standing alone in the road, confusion written across his face. 

Eventually he walked home, holding his bike by his side. He was still a little shaken from the crash; Richie could've definitely broken something if he'd landed a certain way.

Eddie shook away the thought as he entered his house. 

-

He was sent out again by his mother a couple hours later for another aspirator. It was the only "medicine" he still carried around with him, they did help with anxiety attacks whether he wanted to admit it or not. 

And they helped please his mother. 

He was just about to enter when he heard a kid messing with his bike mutter by the door, "—fuck do you run out of sunglasses?" 

Eddie spun around, having looked past the person at first glance.

"Richie?" Eddie called out. 

Richie froze. He seemed to be debating whether or not to turn around, and a second later he slapped a hand over his eyes again and smoothly replied, "Eddie! What's up, man?" 

"What are you doing?"

Richie blindly fumbled with his bike while speaking. "Well," he started, growing frustrated with the kickstand on his bike, "The store is out of sunglasses! Impeccable timing, huh?" 

Eddie said nothing, and bent down to help Richie with his kickstand. Richie peeked out from his hand, and for a split second, Eddie could see a flash of crimson— and Richie's eyes were covered once more. 

Richie was _embarrassed_! Eddie thought he'd never see the day. 

Eddie opened his mouth to tease him, but Richie quickly hopped onto his bike and grabbed the handlebars, still facing away from Eddie. 

"Wait!" Eddie said instead, "Where are you going?" 

"The next town over. Surely they have some, right?" 

"And just how far away is the next town over?" Eddie realizes sounds like his mom as he's saying it, and it makes him shiver. 

It works, apparently. 

Richie sighs. "Fine," he says, turning to Eddie for the first time, "I'm going home, I'll see you on Wednesday." His eyes are a pale, greenish-yellow— was he.. nervous? 

Richie Tozier, nervous and embarrassed? Eddie was really liking Richie without his sunglasses. 

“Wait!" Eddie said again, "Why Wednesday?" 

"That's when the next shipment of sunglasses come in," he says bluntly as he starts pedaling away, "Chao!"

"You can't just hide away for a week, Richie!" Eddie called—yelled— after him, and Richie either didn't hear him, or he just didn't care. 

It turns out Richie can hide away for at least 4 days. He was nowhere to be seen on Saturday, then Sunday, and he wasn't even at school on Monday. 

Bill asked him where Richie was during lunch, and suddenly all of the loser's eyes were on him. Earlier they were all varying shades of yellow or grey during class—though for Ben and Bev, pink—but now they were all greenish-yellow. Nervousness had begun to creep up on them; they were most likely thinking of It. Though they had defeated him, it's hard to forget something as traumatic as it was.

Eddie soothed their worries with a simple, "He broke his sunglasses. He's being a real baby about it." 

The eyes around the table all melted into yellow in an instant. "Oh," Bill said, smiling, "i-interesting. He's wuh-worn those f-for as long as I-I've known him." 

None of them said anything after that. They knew what it meant. 

"It's funny seeing him without them." Eddie replied, breaking the awkward silence. "I've never seen him embarrassed—"

"Maybe don't make fun of him for it, okay?" Mike said, after he and Stanley exchanged knowing glances. Suddenly their eyes were the same color as Eddie's when he lied. "I'm sure he gets enough of it at home." 

Eddie didn't know what that meant.

"He makes fun of _me_ all the time," he muttered, but kept a mental note to not mention anything to Richie. 

Mike nodded. Eddie felt like his eyes had given him away again. 

"Maybe we can try and make him feel more comfortable without them?" 

-

Richie was forced to come to school on Tuesday.

He wasn't his usual self at all—he barely spoke to Eddie in physics, and never stopped by his locker like he did every day. He kept avoiding even looking at Eddie. 

Even though he'd promised Mike he wouldn't talk about it, he cornered Richie on the bleachers. He and Beverly were smoking as Eddie angrily clomped up the stairs.

"Why are you avoiding me?" He asked bluntly. Beverly giggled. 

"I would never do something like that, Eds." Richie said, though he didn't sound too into it. 

Eddie glanced at his eyes. They were grey, bored, but that was most likely from the smoking. Richie quickly turned away. 

"C'mon, Richie!" Beverly chimed in, "don't be such a baby, as Eddie so thoughtfully put it." She'd promised Mike, too, but Eddie assumed she'd already broken it by the way she was so casually mentioning it. Classic Beverly. 

"We're going to the lake after school," Eddie quickly said, as if saying it faster would erase what Beverly had told Richie. Though it was true, Eddie didn't think Richie really needed that right now. "You better come."

Richie hummed, a small smile on his lips. For the first time, his eyes turned a pale yellow. 

It was a start, at least.

-

Beverly, as tradition, jumped in first. Ben followed, then Bill, Stanley, and Mike. Eddie was untying his shoes when Richie spoke up for the first time since they'd gone down there. "Want to jump in together?" 

His eyes were a pale green. 

Eddie didn't mention their color, and instead beamed in agreement. 

They hit the water at the same time, and swam, shivering, to where the rest of their friends had gathered. 

They jumped a couple more times, raced to the top of the cliff, played tag and wrestled. Richie's eyes seemed to grow even more vibrant every minute they were there, from a pale green to a yellow that shined as bright as the sun. It was exhilarating watching his eyes glow brighter, his smile grow wider. 

They were playing near the shallow end when Eddie tackled him under the water. He held him there, and when he opened his eyes, his gaze met Richie's.

Eddie realized it was the first time Richie was looking directly at him since he had broken his glasses. 

His hair was curling with the water, in little wisps that framed his face nicely. His stare was striking, full of humor as his eyes somehow grew even more vibrant and sparkling. He was filled with so much affection for this boy that he didn't quite understand. It had always been there, he supposed. Eddie couldn't help it; he smiled.

He didn't know what changed, what triggered the switch, but Richie's eyes shifted colors once more. It was almost as if they were melting, slowly, then all at once. They dripped from the most beautiful yellow to a gorgeous pink.

Baby pink.

Eddie sucked in a breath, completely forgetting where he was in the moment.

He quickly rose to the surface, coughing up water as he gasped for air. "Richie—" he choked, sounding weak and _scared_. 

Richie rose, too, then blinked away the water from his eyes. The pink was gone. It was replaced with white, and Eddie quickly began to wonder if he'd been imagining it. "Huh?"

_How_ though? It seemed so real..?

"You guys okay?" Mike asked, causing Bill to look over as well. 

Eddie glanced at Richie, who remained frozen, and who seemed to be in a crisis at that moment. 

"We're good, I think." Eddie said, a little too loudly. They were obviously not. His eyes must've been blue-grey, but Mike didn't comment on it. "Richie?" 

"Yup, just dandy." Richie helpfully supplied. His eyes remained white.

It seemed Eddie's question about if Richie's eyes changed color when he was lying was answered. 

Richie kind of trickled off to the side the rest of the time they were there. Though he tried to hide it, his eyes returned to the pale green they were at the start. 

It felt like they made zero progress with the "being okay with your emotions" thing.

Eddie played with Stanley and Bill after that, though Stanley's eyes gave away that he was feeling a little nervous, too. Eddie assumed it was about Richie, and didn't mention it. 

He walked home alone. 

Eddie dreamt of pink eyes under the water that night. 

-

Richie skipped school again on Wednesday. Once class had been let out, Eddie walked all the way down to the clubhouse. He wasn’t exactly sure why, he just had a feeling he’d be there. 

"Hello?" Eddie called into the darkness.

"Yeah?" A voice came from inside. 

Eddie stepped down the latter, unsurprised to see Richie rocking peacefully in the hammock, comic book in hand. Eddie was also unsurprised to see that he was wearing sunglasses. 

Eddie carefully climbed in with him, making sure it wouldn’t tip over. Richie turned the page in his comic, not even bothering to say hello.

“So the shipment came in, huh?” Richie didn’t reply. With the stupid sunglasses on, he couldn’t tell how he was feeling at all, he never realized how _infuriating_ it was. Eddie grew impatient. "Take those off." 

"Why?" He flipped another page. It didn't seem like he was reading, just doing it out of spite. 

"You know why. Take them off." 

"No," Richie said bluntly. 

Something snapped.

"Take them off!" He yelled, reaching for Richie's face. Richie made a sound of disgust, then squirmed out of his reach, which only threw the hammock off balance. They both tumbled out of it, landing harshly on the floor below. 

"Ow," Richie groaned. 

Eddie held his sunglasses triumphantly in the air. "There!" He said, rounding on Richie. His eyes were black, his face expressionless. “Much better."

"Why do you keep doing this?" Richie's tone was uncharacteristically quiet. It was a question he'd been meaning to ask for a long time, that much was clear. 

"Doing what?" Eddie asked, glancing around the clubhouse to see where Richie's comic had gone to. Richie fell silent. Eddie quickly realized what he was talking about. "Oh." 

"I don't— I just don't.." Richie looked physically pained to be talking about this, his eyes swirling into crimson as he righted himself from the floor. "Why?"

"I don't know," Eddie replied, because he really didn't know.

Richie still wasn't looking at him. "It's fine, just, can I have..?" He reached for the sunglasses dangling loosely in Eddie's hands. Eddie didn't know what came over him, but he held them out of reach again. 

"No..?" Eddie said, not meaning for it to come out as a question. "No." He said again, more sternly this time. 

"Stop messing around." Richie reached for the glasses again. Eddie, once again, held them out of reach. 

"I like you without them." The words slipped out by mistake, without any ounce of hesitation accompanying them. It was the truth, Eddie realized. He really _did_ like Richie better without them. 

Richie froze, and suddenly a smirk appeared across his face. His eyes shifted to the yellow Eddie had seen at the lake, though his gaze remained fixed on the sunglasses. 

"Oh? You like me?"

"No—" Eddie scoffed, now holding the sunglasses to his chest.

"No take-backs!" 

"I definitely don't like you anymore:" Eddie teased, grateful they were falling back into their roles after everything being so different the past week. 

"Mhm." Richie laughed, "Then why do you hang out with me so much?"

"Because I—" 

_Because I'm in love with you. _

It wasn't like in the movies where someone would gasp and suddenly all felt right in the world. It was a tugging of the heart, a simple thought that appeared so suddenly that it seemed normal. It was scary how easily it came to him, like it had been hidden there for a long time.

Eddie looked to the ground. Damn, he really did like Richie. He liked his lame jokes, his bravery, his weird attention to detail, and his stupid, _stupid_ face. He guessed he really _had_ known for a long time. He’d _wanted_ Richie’s eyes to be pink in the lake— how had he not noticed before?

“Cat got your tongue?” Richie giggled. Eddie met his gaze. 

Suddenly he was seeing what he'd waited his whole life for. 

Richie was looking at Eddie like he was the world. 

Richie was looking at him with pink in his eyes. 

For real, with no doubt about it. Richie's eyes were baby pink, flecked with little spots of gold, and they were beautiful— the sunlight made them look so _alive_.

Richie made a sound of surprise, backing away from Eddie before he could even process what was going on. Richie's eyes were now a deep crimson, matching the color on his cheeks. "You.. Your eyes—!" He sputtered, nervously pulling at his collar. 

"What about them?" Eddie asked, anxiety slowly starting to grip his insides. Richie's silence told him everything, and his cheeks began to heat as well. "So were yours, dumbass!" 

“I know! That's why I wore the sunglasses!" 

"You _knew_? What the fuck? Why didn't you say anything?" 

"I don't know!" He started fidgeting with the bottom of his shorts instead of looking at Eddie, his face growing redder the more he spoke. Eddie had never seen Richie look so lost, it was almost bizarre.

There was silence for a moment, and the longer it ticked on, the more awkward it became. 

"What do we do now?" Eddie mumbled. 

"I don't know." Richie said again. 

There was more silence. Eddie felt like he was going to explode. He wanted to touch Richie, to hold him, to _kiss_ him with this new knowledge— 

"We could.." he started, but trailed off. He couldn't say it, even though he _knew_ Richie felt the same way but.. 

Oh, god. Richie _did_ feel the same about him. And he'd felt that way for longer than he had! If this wasn’t so fucking awkward he’d laugh—

Suddenly Richie was tentatively placing his hand over Eddie's. The movement was so tender and uncharacteristic for him that it made Eddie shiver—he was sure his entire face was red by now. 

Eddie was looking up again. Richie was so close that their noses were almost touching, and he could feel Richie's soft breaths on his lips. His eyes had returned to their beautiful pink. 

It was like the feeling you get before the first big drop in a roller coaster. The way your stomach clenches as you hold your breath, how scary, yet it exciting it all feels. 

Eddie's breath hitched as he closed his eyes and gently brought his lips to Richie's. 

He kissed him. And again. And again.

He didn't know what he was doing—it was his first kiss, after all—nor if Richie did either, but the thought of that just made the whole thing better.

Eddie did have to take something back, though. After they pulled away from the kiss, and Richie looked at him like _that_ again, all did suddenly feel right with the world. 


End file.
